Arts Stimulus Funding & the Art Economy Part 1: By the Numbers

by Hrag Vartanian|Jul 8, 2009

President Obama, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., signing the $787 billion stimulus bill at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in February. (via NYTimes.com, photo by Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

Talking about federal arts funding in America can be very confusing because of the many facts and figures. So, in an effort to understand the current and historic levels of federal funds that artists of all types have enjoyed, and to better understand the economic impact of the arts in America, I have compiled the following data from online sources for Part 1 of this two-part series. Part 2 is an interview with both Congressional Arts Caucus Co-Chairs, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. Todd Russell Platts (R-PA) about federal funding for the arts, and will post on Thursday.

STIMULUS ARTS FUNDING TODAY

Current funding for the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA): $155 million

There are approximately 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations in America, which spend $63.1 billion annually.

There are more full-time jobs (incl. accountants, designers, plumbers, union workers & engineers) supported by the nonprofit arts organizations than are in accounting, public safety officers, even lawyers and just slightly fewer than elementary school teachers.

Arts Stimulus during the Great Depression (1930s)
The Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “stimulus,” made the arts a priority. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was the largest New Deal agency and it included the Federal Arts Project (FAP).

…[it] employed more than 5,000 artists at its peak in 1936 and probably double that number over the eight years of its existence. It produced 2,566 murals, more than 100,000 easel paintings, about 17,700 sculptures, nearly 300,000 fine prints, and about 22,000 plates for the Index of American Design, along with innumerable posters and objects of craft.

President Johnson signs the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, on September 29, 1965. (photo via NEA website)

During its life, the FAP employed many American artists who would later become the greats of 20th-century American art, including Berenice Abbott, Arshile Gorky, Jacob Lawrence, Mark Rothko, and many others.History of Federal Funding (post-1965)
In 1965, the US Congress created the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) as an independent agency of the federal government. Since 1965, the NEA has awarded more than 130,000 grants totaling more than $4 billion (source).

Mankind is not attached to blindness. This is a myth that artists have propogated over the past 150 years to make ourselves feel superior in mind and soul, if not in pocketbook. This attitude of superiority has become toxic, and made artists increasingly irrelevant.

This article is very inspiring. Finding grants for Arts can be tough but I just found a grant for the arts at GrantWatch.com This grant Art Grants at GrantWatch.com is a great opportunity for my Art Students to get funding.